This Week in MCJ (1/2/21)
What do better on-ramps to working on climate look like?
Hey everyone,
Happy New Year, we made it! Not that 2021 will magically be fundamentally different, but there are certainly reasons for optimism with the vaccine and the changing political tides here in the US.
We had a great MCJ Town Hall to close out the year on Friday. One of the topics that came up was about people looking to reorient their careers around addressing climate change, and the best ways to do that. Since so many of you (and I!) fit that profile, we are well aware that it is not an easy transition to make. One of the things we talked about in the Town Hall was organizing a working group from within the community to help us determine the most important buckets of things people making this transition need (for example, could be training, could be help finding a job, could be a peer group or fellowship program, etc), then look at who is doing what in each of these areas, to determine how to piece these disparate offerings into something more unified for MCJ members, and what, if anything, MCJ should build ourselves, either directly or through partnership.
We are not sure on timing yet, but if you would be interested in helping with something like this, let us know. And in the meantime, if you are going through (or have already gone through) this transition and have input about what would be most helpful to you and/or others, we would love to hear from you with any color you’d be willing to share.
I’ve been seeing more and more tweets like the one below, and it is awesome so many more people are awakening to the magnitude of this crisis and wanting to help, but now we need to build better bridges to make the on-ramp easier for all! I am excited to explore this in the coming months, collaboratively, with all of you.
Jason
📼Episodes
Here’s this week’s episode, in case you missed it.
Episode 137: Josh Felser, Angel investor and Co-Founder of Freestyle VC
This week’s guest is Josh Felser, Angel investor and Co-Founder of Freestyle VC.
I was excited for this episode, as Josh is among a growing group of very successful people coming from other industries who are looking to get serious about addressing climate change. Josh is a several time entrepreneur, (founded Spinner, acquired by AOL Time Warner and Grouper, acquired by Sony), and went on to co-found Freestyle Capital, a venture capital firm focused on backing early stage internet and mobile startups.
After working with Bill Trenchard from First Round Capital on a California task force to connect startups with the government to help in the COVID-19 crisis, Josh realized that he wanted to do something more to help with these huge societal problems. He’s been working in and around climate for a long time. He started an organization called #Climate.org, and he’s donated to nonprofits and been on different committees at the Sierra Club and tried to effect change through the nonprofit path. Josh found the nonprofit path to be challenging, at least for him, to leverage his background into impact, and his experience working with Bill gave him the conviction to try to forge a professional path combining investing with tackling the climate crisis. A great article on Josh’s transition is here.
If you can’t tell, Josh’s story is pretty similar to yours truly! So I was especially excited to hear how Josh’s process is going and compare notes. It is a great discussion, and I hope you enjoy! I didn’t know Josh before we both transitioned from tech into working on climate change, but I am glad to know him and hope we do more together in the future!
📼Startup Series
The Startup Series features founders of early-stage companies, sharing their business and mission. The audio to this series is available wherever you get your podcasts. The pitch presentation and slides are exclusively available to My Climate Journey Members. If you’re interested in watching this episode, you can learn about becoming an MCJ Member here, or you can watch it here.
Episode 24: Emrgy with Co-Founder and CEO, Emily Morris
Emrgy paves the way for a more sustainable and reliable future by providing clean, continuous electricity through modular hydroelectric turbines in waterways. Emrgy's proprietary turbines and drive train deliver sustained and cost-effective clean power without dams. Through GIS and satellite data, Emrgy uses a rigorous process to identify potential canals that have in-conduit hydroelectric potential. It then installs a modular, flexible hydropower system that can be deployed quickly. Pioneering modular hydropower, Emrgy empowers its customers to monetize previously unrealized energy assets without modifying existing infrastructure. It signed a General Electric Renewable Energy Global manufacturing and sales partnership in 2019 and was awarded $3.6M in funding from the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E in 2020.
Emrgy’s Founder and CEO, Emily Morris, and I have a lively discussion as she takes me through her path to entrepreneurship, Emrgy's beginnings, and the lessons she has learned looking back on her career. We talk about Emrgy's technology and its process for identifying sites. Emily also explains why hydropower is essential to a successful energy transition and the distinction between clean and sustainable. Emily was a great guest, and I enjoyed learning more about what she’s building with Emrgy.
🎓Alumni News
MCJ Pod Alum and MCJ Collective Fund LP, Albert Wenger released a near-final version of his book, The World After Capital. Check it out here! If you are interested in learning more about Albert, check out his conversation with Jason in Episode 49.
👋 Welcome New MCJers!
Below are new members who joined the community and introduced themselves in the past week. You can learn more about them on #introductions, where you can welcome them to the community.
A warm welcome to the MCJ Community!
Al Clark: Al is the COO of BlueRidge AI, a company that uses ML-based vision systems to improve industrial efficiency. He has also worked at DataTribe and focuses on financial modeling and legal work as well as market research. Al is interested in connecting with people or companies that may have legal or startup business strategy questions. He is excited to be part of the MCJ community.
Bruno Werneck de Almeida: Leading corporate development and partnerships at Plaid, a San Francisco based financial data infrastructure company, Bruno is well versed in the climate fintech space. He is passionate about the intersection of climate action and open finance/fintech and is actively looking to meet more folks in that space.
Jack Seagrist: Jack is a master’s student in Environmental Engineering at Stanford where he conducts research at the Stanford Woods Institution investigating the role of water data in basin scale decision-making and was a Product Management intern at Imagine H2O. Aside from his research, he is interested in data science and climate. He looking forward to meeting MCJers and learning from the community.
Tom McQuillen: Based in Australia, Tom is working as a Climate VC at ReGen Ventures. He is well versed in outdoor education and environmental ecotourism but in the past few years, he has focused on product and growth roles at early-stage startups. He is excited to connect with more community members.
John Scanio: A climate tech hedge fund manager from Austin, TX, John is interested in sustainability and climate impact. He previously co-founded a cleantech ESG public equities fund and has been focused on climate since 2010. He is looking forward to connecting with members and providing support where he can.
Anca Timofte: Anca hauls from Romania but is currently pursuing an MBA at Stanford where she is studying sustainable finance and climate tech development. Her background is in process engineering, design, hardware R&D, and direct air capture. She is passionate about DAC and interested in meeting more of the MCJ community.
Ritika Borkar: Ritika is a computer architect based in Portland, OR. She is looking to learn from the experts within the MCJ community and explore opportunities to apply her skills to help the environment.
Ben Blumenrose: Ben co-founded a firm called Designer Fund, a company that invests in mission-driven founders and empower them with design to improve the world. Design Fund is hoping to be more involved with climate-focused companies and Ben is excited to be part of MCJ.
David Aitoro: Working on his MBA and MS in cleantech at Stanford, David’s interests lie in finding ways to help renewables provide a greater share of our electricity via energy storage or more effective DER management. He excited to be part of the community and learn from fellow MCJers.
Joshua Cortez: Josh is a data scientist from the Phillippines. He has been working in management consulting/data science consulting for the past 5 years. Recently he has been determined to transition his career into climate. He is looking for opportunities in the climate tech space and is excited to learn more from the community.
Ellery Berk: Ellery is at Stanford Business school and the first business hire at Myst AI. She is fascinated by climate fintech and is a self-identified grid nerd. She is looking forward to meeting more MCJers.
BJ Johnson: A Stanford-trained mechanical engineering PhD from Seattle, BJ co-founded ClearFlame Engines which provides better solutions for energy and transportation sectors. He is looking forward to advancing his knowledge of climate within the community!
Lauren Fraser: Lauren is the COO of CrowdTangle and her background is in media & tech. She is looking to get more involved with climate specifically in electrification and anything in the content space. She is also an Angel investor.
💼Climate Jobs
Here are some jobs shared by members of the MCJ community that we think might be of interest to you. Many of these opportunities and the MCJers who shared them can be found in #climatejobs in the MCJ Slack.
Marketing Director at SilviaTerra (San Francisco, CA) (job listing)
Origination Associate and Manager of C&I Business Development (not yet posted) at NextEra Energy (San Francisco, CA) (job listing) (careers page - Origination Associate)
MCJ Alum Tim Latimer and his company Fervo Energy are looking for a Geothermal Geologist to join their team (job listing) (careers page). Learn more about Fervo in Tim’s MCJ episode here.
📰🎧Recommended Reading/Listening
Below are recently published articles and content that we find interesting and/or that were shared by fellow MCJers.
Quartz: “BlackRock’s list of climate commitments just got longer”
The Wall Street Journal: “Companies Seek to Green the Grid With Trash Gas”
TechCrunch: “National Grid sees machine learning as the brains behind the utility business of the future”
The New York Times: “A Monster Wind Turbine Is Upending an Industry” (Check out MCJ Alum, David Hardy featured in the article!)
🎟Climate Events
As a reminder, we have a MCJ Events Calendar, where you can view and post events for the rest of the MCJ community to attend. When posting an event, please refer to this checklist.
*We’re highlighting a few upcoming events below; please refer to the events calendar for a complete list.*
Previous
MCJ Town Hall (12/30/20)
Thank you to those who attended 2020’s final MCJ Town Hall. For those that were not able to attend, you can view a recording here. During the town hall, we discussed a number of topics including a look back at the successes of 2020, how to foster engagement in the community, and questions about MCJ Collective.
Upcoming
Meet-a-MCJer via Icebreaker (Friday January 8th @ noon ET)
We’re hosting an Icebreaker for members of the MCJ community. Come join us for several rounds of casual 1:1 conversations with a fellow MCJ Member whom you have not met. Each round of conversation is 10 minutes and there’s fun questions to help break the 🧊! RSVP by dropping us a note.
Clean Energy For America Inaugural Ball (Wednesday January 20th @ 7 pm ET)
President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will walk the steps of the Capitol on January 20th - walk the virtual red carpet with Clean Energy For Biden. Join the A-list lineup in celebrating a momentous clean energy future. More information here.
Please note this is a political fundraiser for Clean Energy for Biden and fiscally sponsored by the Cleantech Leaders Roundtable; they will be collecting money on behalf of Clean Energy for Biden. Information about becoming a sponsor of the event here.
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